THE ONCE AND PERHAPS FUTURE ARGENTINE ELECTRICITY MARKET

Argentina is perhaps the only country in the world that once had a well-functioning and self-financing electricity market according to well-accepted economic principles, then reverted back to an effectively centralized structure with heavy government subsidies, and then subsequently sought to try to rely on market forces again. In this short paper we explain how the market started, the problems that it had, and how we think that normalization of the electricity market in Argentina can be achieved.